Labradoodle & Goldendoodle Forum
Fear becomes aggression What to do now?
And I thought I was the only one.......
In recent posts doodle owners have admitted that one of their doodles is showing fear-aggression.
Starlit shows fear of all strangers. Actually, Starlit is afraid of paper bags, water pitchers, dust rolling on the floor, a leaf blowing on the ground........... you get the idea. Even poochie bells--she knows what the sound means but after four months she will not ring them. Sometimes the "Touch" command works to help alleviate her fear and get her familiar if I can get her attention to me and not the object she fears.
When we are in public and she meets a stranger she is able to get behind us, back away, and cower. We don't push it, just out there socializing and supporting her all we can. Our chief problem--and it truly concerns me is how she
treats house guests.
For example, tonight my son stopped by for a visit. He is not the
typical house guest you can ask to SIT-STAY, NO EYE CONTACT, SIT WITH A COOKIE. He grew up here and moves about freely. After all, even though he no longer sleeps here, this was
his home.
Starlit cowers, growls, lunges forward, and barks instead of backing
away like she does in public. Last week when he was here she tried to
nip him in the butt when he walked by. This is the 2nd time she got him.
In April, my oldest son came to stay because he was very sick. He was
not up moving around. He slept, with a fever on the couch for four days.
It never improved. She growled and came forward each time he got off
the couch. He called me each time he wanted to get up off the couch because he began to fear her.
BTW--my sons are adults who are dog-owners themselves. Gentle and patient who adore animals.
Starlit adores other dogs and is wonderful with my elderly cats.
Previous Training has been the positive reinforcement method--I call cookie training. I am looking for a more conservative , no nonsense approach. This is serious. One trainer told me to take the prong collar and yank her to the ground. ???? Is this a correct method? It is also submissive position and I think may bring more fear?
We search for places to take her to socialize her but I'm looking for
other answers or just to share some ideas about methods others are trying.
We'd like to NIP this in the Butt now before she becomes older.
UPDATE: STARLIT GOES TO THE VET
I thought what the vet said was interesting. She suspects ( although Starlit was a perfect angel with her ) that what I described may be two separate issues.
1 ) Fear -Aggression --which we have so far discussed
2 ) Fear-Aggression PLUS Territorial Behaviors in the home setting.
I thought this was interesting and it gave me some iideas on what to work with.
Our next step is to seek out a trainer who will come into the home. Of course, my son won't come back so I will just have to hire a kid off the street and promise candy ( positive reward ) :)
And here is the one some of you may not like--but I do. You are welcome to throw my butt to the nippers too--feel free. MEDICATION!
To see a dog who will not play like a puppy, who cowers from fear, to me, is not living a good quality of life. For two months Starlit will be tried on anti-anxiety drugs to see if this helps. She returns to the vet after
In recent posts doodle owners have admitted that one of their doodles is showing fear-aggression.
Starlit shows fear of all strangers. Actually, Starlit is afraid of paper bags, water pitchers, dust rolling on the floor, a leaf blowing on the ground........... you get the idea. Even poochie bells--she knows what the sound means but after four months she will not ring them. Sometimes the "Touch" command works to help alleviate her fear and get her familiar if I can get her attention to me and not the object she fears.
When we are in public and she meets a stranger she is able to get behind us, back away, and cower. We don't push it, just out there socializing and supporting her all we can. Our chief problem--and it truly concerns me is how she
treats house guests.
For example, tonight my son stopped by for a visit. He is not the
typical house guest you can ask to SIT-STAY, NO EYE CONTACT, SIT WITH A COOKIE. He grew up here and moves about freely. After all, even though he no longer sleeps here, this was
his home.
Starlit cowers, growls, lunges forward, and barks instead of backing
away like she does in public. Last week when he was here she tried to
nip him in the butt when he walked by. This is the 2nd time she got him.
In April, my oldest son came to stay because he was very sick. He was
not up moving around. He slept, with a fever on the couch for four days.
It never improved. She growled and came forward each time he got off
the couch. He called me each time he wanted to get up off the couch because he began to fear her.
BTW--my sons are adults who are dog-owners themselves. Gentle and patient who adore animals.
Starlit adores other dogs and is wonderful with my elderly cats.
Previous Training has been the positive reinforcement method--I call cookie training. I am looking for a more conservative , no nonsense approach. This is serious. One trainer told me to take the prong collar and yank her to the ground. ???? Is this a correct method? It is also submissive position and I think may bring more fear?
We search for places to take her to socialize her but I'm looking for
other answers or just to share some ideas about methods others are trying.
We'd like to NIP this in the Butt now before she becomes older.
UPDATE: STARLIT GOES TO THE VET
I thought what the vet said was interesting. She suspects ( although Starlit was a perfect angel with her ) that what I described may be two separate issues.
1 ) Fear -Aggression --which we have so far discussed
2 ) Fear-Aggression PLUS Territorial Behaviors in the home setting.
I thought this was interesting and it gave me some iideas on what to work with.
Our next step is to seek out a trainer who will come into the home. Of course, my son won't come back so I will just have to hire a kid off the street and promise candy ( positive reward ) :)
And here is the one some of you may not like--but I do. You are welcome to throw my butt to the nippers too--feel free. MEDICATION!
To see a dog who will not play like a puppy, who cowers from fear, to me, is not living a good quality of life. For two months Starlit will be tried on anti-anxiety drugs to see if this helps. She returns to the vet after
- Home viist from a trainer
- Medication
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ginny Nightingale on
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Wow--this is bad!At least Lyric never bites or growls--she just barks. Get her to a POSITIVE reinforcement trainer--NOW! No choke collars--this is only making her more afraid and she may turn on YOU! You need to contact some vets or humane societies in your area to see if you can find a better trainer. She should be getting cookies and positive reinforcement for not growling and remaining calm when the son moves around her and this will take time. but she is so young--you have plenty of time to get this fixed. Your son should ignore her, but you should have her on a leash AT ALL TIMES so you can step on it if she goes to the son or keep her close to you and reward her as he goes by. (keep treats in a ouch in your pocket for instant rewards--and have a quick word for reinforcement too--like "good" or "yes". Do not give her the freedom of the whole house when your sons are there! You are allowing her to develop a habit that could really escalate.
This is, of course, just my opinion and I am sure there are others who would say other things, but this has all worked with Lyric and is what I was taught by me super terrific trainer! Lyric feels so much more secure when she is on the leash and with me. It's as if she is "off-duty". I just left her for a week at home with my son-- he is 18 and has never been home with the dogs for a week alone before. He had a bunch of friends over (which I wasn't too happy about but that is a different story..) and he knew that Lyric might freak out about all these tall strangers in our house. He kept her on the leash after seeing me do that (smart boy!) and told me that she was much better. She is usually not that comfortable with him, but by the second day, she was sleeping in his bed! She had adopted him as her new "mom"! Let me know if you try any of this and it helps--I hope so! -
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Permalink Reply by Joanne ~ Spud* on
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We see the VET at 2:45 today :)
Spud -the swimmer and dock diver has an ear ache ( imagine that ) I called and added another doodle to the visit.
We did bring this up when she was spayed and we were told she is shy and to "see how it goes" Well--IT IS NOT GOING.
Positive reinforcement training she has attended and it was great, although, the trainor stated--You can not positively reinforce this behavior. So we are done with her :) She is right, you can't reward biting, but I still see no way that will work!!! -
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Permalink Reply by shelly on
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Can't wait to hear what your vet says this time! Tori barks, but (so far) never tried to nip (since she has become a grown woman any way). She just plain out lays down where ever she's fearful and won't budge! good thing she's only 40 pounds and I can still lift her - probably NOT the thing to do, but while in the street, I rather do THAT than tug her to get up where she then bucks like a bronco, and chance her coming out of her collar. Which happened once in a parkinglot while taking her to the groomer... speaking of groomers - my groomer says she's so good there - doesn't bark, growl or cower - huh...
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Your son is smart--we leash her with company too :)
Sometimes I wonder if we were not here is she would do better with the strangers. My neighbors do dog sit for us. She STILL won't go to the male neighbor EVER even though he comes to let her out sometimes.
They say she has improved SO MUCH. Maybe I am not seeing the improvements. But I won't give up--there is always room to improve and keep her happy. I think there are better things I can learn and try. -
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By the way--the expression is "nip this in the bud" as in a flower bud--but I like your use of it better in this case! "Nip in the butt"--like your son's butt! LOL!!
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:) Glad you got it...it was just tooo appropriate. Wonder if the vet will get that joke today?
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Permalink Reply by Adina P on
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While I have never had personal experience training a fearful dog, I do think that it is incorrect to assume that any correction-based training will create more fear in the fearful dog or be 'worse' for a fearful dog than an all positive approach. The assumption that it is worse is based in the (false) premise that any correction based training works via fear and somehow 'breaks the dog's spirit' or inevitably causes dogs to 'shuts down' ...therefore of course it would be the worst possible choice for an already fearful dog.
I would counter that this idea is simply not true. It is not based in facts about good training that uses corrections. If anything good correction-based (and it is not necessarily correction-based except in the eyes of 'all-positive' trainers) training puts things in a simple black-white framework for a dog that helps the dog chill out because it finally sees how to control its own environment and experience.
Now, based solely on your description of the prong collar correction into a down...I'm not too impressed. Is that the extent of the 'solution' from the trainer? I think it's most useful for corrections to be given within an obedience program (i.e. a down correction would be given if-and-only-if a down command was given and not obeyed). I think a dog needs to know 'what to do' first...corrections come later.
If I had a fearful-aggressive dog that dog would have extremely limited freedom and ALL outings would be training outings. The socialization still happens as a byproduct but the outings are always focused on active learning of 'what-to-do' and attention to a task. So, for example, if I were going into town or a park (or wherever) with a fearful dog...that dog would be working on heeling, sit stays, down stays, on-leash recalls, and would not have the opportunity to 'act' fearful or worry. IF it worried and fretted and felt the urge to act aggressively it could not complete the tasks of heeling, sitting, etc and thus would be corrected. Of course...this would start with minimal distraction, A dog flooded with fear or worry is not in a position to learn. So of course a dog like Starlit wouldn't be learning to heel (with the possibility of correction) in a very stressful environment that she's already failing in. She would start FAR from the things that provoked her fear and only gradually as the dog gained confidence would the dog be challenged to work in more difficult situations/near more difficult things.
In this way such a dog would learn that there were things it could do: heel, sit, down, come..on command...and when it did those things there was nothing to fear. The squirrels, paperbags, kids playing on the playground, men in hats, etc...these were all harmless and doggy became impervious to these things while heeling, sitting, downing, coming. With experiences like these, the fear inducing items would diminish. Maybe such a dog would never be completely "normal" but at least you could give the dog things to do to manage and prevent acting in aggression. AND the dog would find comfort in doing these tasks.
Just my opinion. If you ever decide to go for something other than all-positive, let me know and I can ask some of the trainers I know for a recommendation near you. -
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Adina,
You're HIRED :)
Since we are layed-off (husband) and cut hours (me ) we have a lot of time to practice but were searching for what to do. Thank goodness we have the time and we shall certainly take the advice and work with it all we can!!!
She has been to classes --(two sets ) so she has a good base and all this is possible to work with.
We don't need normal. We love her just the way she is but would love it if she found some peace and comfort. -
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I have my opinion on what to do. But I'm not mainstream =) If I find out there is a trainer near you that does what I believe in most...I'll PM (not Puppy Mill) you.
I've said it before...but I don't believe in "spot fixing' -- in other words whether the problem is 'fear', 'lunging', 'digging', 'jumping on guests,' etc...my belief is that the goal should be exceptional obedience. Train for exceptional obedience in 'all' types (within reason and time) circumstances the dog is likely to encounter and then you'll have most of the work done and very little spot-fixing to do ... AND...this super obedient dog =)
(Disclaimer...I only got part of the way to 'super obedient dog' because Rosco doesn't have little things to fix any more and without a 'problem' there's little motivation to get that 'super obedient dog'. Well he has obedience things to fix because of holes I left in his training...but nothing that causes me regular problems or that I need to complain about.) -
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Think PM. I've met two trainers in my area. I think we LACK here. I've learned more from DK posts than .............. well you get the idea.
There are some in Cleveland. It is over an hour away but may be worth a nice drive. -
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Permalink Reply by F, Calla & Luca on
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PM--Am I missing something again? Anyway, I agree with Adina, give Starlit a command, sit, down, whatever and correct her. Prong collars, as you well know, are not choke collars and my two still wear theirs regularly so they behave well when walking . They are not abusive, although perhaps for me they are a substitute for super training. But to tell Starlit to sit when she's growling, or harassing a son is appropriate as is correcting her if she doesn't do it. I don't think fear is relevant in that part of the equation. I also think medication, perhaps only short term, does wonders to help an anxious person--er, I mean dog, be able to concentrate on learning what's appropriate.Things like sons are part of the family and need to be respected and loved! :) In the end all of this is for her welfare. But don't forger, ripped jeans, even in the butt are quite fashionable!
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Ah, private mail?
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